Review by Grace Cassidy
A needle-sharp examination of gendered violence
Sunspot Productions
Canberra Theatre Centre
The Airbnb is a cramped, cluttered space: a bare-bones room of worn, squashed couches; a mismatched cluster of bottles on the dining table; an open suitcase discarded on the living room floor. It feels like a room poised for a party, or the leftovers of one.
This is the setting of our story. You Tell My Mum, I’m Dead by Emily O’Mahoney follows three girls on their ill-fated trip to Schoolies. Max (Breanna Kelly), Layla (Ainslie Bull) and Cara (Emily O’Mahoney) are keen for their first taste of adulthood, but before they can truly throw caution to the wind and party the week away, a twist of fate confines them to the cramped space of their beach-side airbnb. This Sunspot Productions play is directed by Kathleen Dunkerley, who deftly breathes life into O’Mahoney’s bitingly clever script. While the one-hour show is a careful balance of drama and comedy, its main focus is something profoundly difficult – what it means to be a girl growing into a woman, in a world where that is an inherently unsafe thing.
Sometimes, dealing with this reality means ignoring it, or playing into it. At one point, the girls play “would you rather” and find themselves debating things like: What kind of sex worker would they prefer to be? Or, if their nudes got leaked, would they rather the photos were unflattering and seen only by their crushes, or hot and seen by everyone? Unsettlingly, the girls come to the conclusion that if you’re going to be the victim of a crime, you may as well look good when it happens.
Then, there’s a pivotal moment in the play, where the dangers of the world become impossible to ignore. The reactions of each girl paint a picture of the different ways we deal with fear. Layla wears her caution like armour; she’s ready to bolt the doors shut and never attend a party again, if it means keeping them all safe. Max yearns to be young and reckless, and the only way she can do that is by pretending there’s nothing to be afraid of. Meanwhile, Cara is in pain, her hurt slowly morphing into despair and rage. Shaking, she tells her friends, “This isn’t the world I want to be an adult in.”
You Tell My Mum, I’m Dead has a short run time. Just one hour long, it’s a play that makes every second count, packed full of jokes and moments that examine patriarchy and gendered violence from every angle. It’s a tight script – well balanced with poignant moments of friendship, humour and girlhood – but there are times where it almost feels too tight. While concision is an excellent quality in theatre, by trying to hit on so many points in a limited run time, a few major character beats don’t quite get the breathing space they need. This by no means detracts from the brilliance of the play, but I can’t help feeling that an extra ten minutes would only have made it hit that much harder.
Ultimately, this is a story about what it’s like to be a teenage girl in a society that views your kind as prey. It’s a piece of art that could not be more timely, but it balances those dark themes with witty comedy and a wickedly talented cast. Breanna Kelly’s performance as Max is ferociously funny, and while Ainslie Bull paints a beautiful portrait of a tense, worried friend in Layla, she also delivers moments of humour so naturally, the comedy almost seems accidental. In the midst of this, playwright Emily O’Mahoney crafts a compelling, vulnerable performance as Cara, effectively catapulting the audience to that singular pain of being 17 years old and scared out of your mind.
